How is it that Colorado, a supposedly progressive state populated by citizens who purport to love the natural wonders that brought them here, keeps compiling such a horrid record of resource protection?
Chalk it up to a greedy fixation on commerce. To short-sighted, sell-out politicians who bully timid resource managers. To general apathy by the greater mass of a public content to let someone else do the heavy lifting.
Truth is, while other Western states strive to apply the brakes on ruinous development, Colorado plunges down a slippery slope toward becoming a California clone. Considering the current rape-and-scrape mentality of both federal and state administrations, it becomes increasingly difficult to put the machinery in reverse.
Two cases in point:
Governors from six Western states recently penned a letter to Congress protesting a pending budget reconciliation bill to facilitate the sale of millions of public acres to mining companies. The bill has been decried by virtually every outdoor and environmental group, who fear both a massive giveaway to special interests and exclusion of the public from some of nation’s best recreation lands.
Notably missing was the signature of Colorado governor Bill Owens, who almost invariably marches lock-step with the Bush administration regarding expanded drilling, mining and timber harvest on public lands. Owens said he hasn’t made up his mind, but his early silence on such an absurd land grab speaks volumes.
Owens, who seldom meets a development he doesn’t like, also exhibits a contrary attitude toward then-president Bill Clinton’s directive proclaiming 58 million acres of National Forests – 4.1 million in Colorado – for management as roadless areas.
Earlier, Owens muzzled the Division of Wildlife while opposing roadless proposals during a U.S. Department of Agriculture review of the White River National Forest. More recently, the governor wrote Mark Rey, undersecretary of agriculture, to the effect that he considered the Clinton directive to be overreaching.
The Bush administration countered Clinton’s roadless plan with an alternative allowing each state to decide how to proceed, with a November 2006 deadline.
Several Western governors immediately moved to keep faith with the directive. Colorado instead proclaimed a 13- member Roadless Task Force currently in the midst of a series of public meetings to receive comments.
When the first was held last month in Delta, hundreds of people clamored for admittance into a painfully undersized room. Most failed. In a pinched time frame, testimony was dominated by industry spokesmen in what Eddie Kochman, a task force member who is a former state fish manager and a resource protection advocate, called “the worst public meeting I ever attended.”
Kochman, who fears the group has been stacked in favor of developers, warns that the roadless proposal has little chance without a strong show of public support.
A second meeting is scheduled Friday at Tamarron resort north of Durango, followed by a Jan. 6 session in Pueblo and a Feb. 24 follow-up in Denver.
However, a move is afoot among pro-industry task force members to shift the Denver meeting to Grand Junction, presumably to avoid an anticipated crowd of protectionists.
Wildlife advocates believe roadless designation in remaining wild areas is essential to buffer wildlife and trout streams against destructive encroachment. The initiative has the support of virtually every outdoor and environmental group but, alas, not all sportsmen.
At the Delta melee, some who identified themselves as ATV enthusiasts and who presumably stand up and cheer when TV commercials show four- wheelers churning through mountain streams, spoke in favor of more wilderness roads.
Most sportsmen passionately contend these sanctuaries should be buffered against disruption and development to protect the state’s fish and game, that more roads serve only to diminish habitat while squeezing deer and elk farther into more difficult terrain.
Perhaps it can be argued that those in the outdoor community who favor a road grid across more of Colorado’s wild places deserve what comes next. Sadly, the rest of us do not.
